The present invention relates to optical components and systems, such as amplifiers, switches, mirrors, detectors, lasers, and communication systems including such devices.
Conventional optical communication systems employ optical signals traveling in optical fibers. It is possible, especially for short-range communications, to dedicate an optical fiber to communication between two end points. Such a dedicated fiber results in an inefficient use of capacity or bandwidth, however, during the time that it is not in use for conveying information between the end points. Routing of signals can provide a more efficient use of bandwidth. To route such optical signals, however, the optical signals must typically be converted to electrical signals and then back to optical signals. This conversion slows the transmission of the optical signals being routed.
Increasing demand for greater communications bandwidth is driving the need for elaborate and vast data-handling optical networks. More sophisticated techniques are being employed to increase the capacity and speed of data transfer between different points on the network. Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) has enabled greater amounts of data to be carried by a single fiber-optic cable. This includes the ability to combine and extract optical signals through the use of add/drop devices. Additionally, optical amplifiers and signal conditioners are needed to maintain the optical signal quality during transmissions over long lengths of fiber-optic cable. Many of these advances in long-haul transmission have outpaced the ability to route and process these high-capacity datastreams.
As mentioned above, conventional technology relies on optical-electrical-optical (OEO) conversion to route data from one fiber to another. Increased cable capacity is exceeding the ability to efficiently network or route the signals to their destinations. Since the electrical segment of the OEO conversion is inherently slower than the optical segment, there is a desire to develop a faster all-optical network switching router.
There have been many different techniques to develop these all-optical switching routers or optical cross-connects (OXC). These devices propose to enable the arbitrary switching of many optical input channels to many output channels. MEMS cross-connect fabrics such as those developed by ATandT Labs and Lucent Technologies use micro-mirrors to deflect the beams from input to output channels.
Signal loss, signal manipulation and other optical networking devices require optical amplification to compensate for the losses. Typically such amplification is performed with edge emitting amplifiers, or for long wavelength signals, erbium doped optical fibers.
In accordance with the present invention, a device is disclosed comprising a substrate with at least one solid-state optical amplifier attached to the substrate, a plurality of mirrors attached to the substrate and moveable relative to the substrate independent of each other, wherein light having a wavelength within a selected range enters the device, is amplified by the amplifier and reflected by one of the mirrors to exit the device in a direction controlled by the mirror. This brief summary merely lists a few possible features of the invention, which is described in more detail below.